ƚBM [INSPIRED BY BLACK METAL]

ƚBM focuses on the influence of black metal anno 2014 and is a response to the current prevalence of the genre. Not coincidentally 30 years after the establishment of legendary Norwegian black metal band Mayhem. Nor coincidentally 20 years after the release of their debut ‘De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas’ - one of the most influential black metal albums ever.

The no man’s land where noise and black metal embrace.
Black metal has been very noticeably rubbing up against noise, post-rock, and industrial music in recent years. Or the other way around, whatever suits you. Just think: Sutekh Hexen (from California), or Prurient and Russell Haswell - who allowed their (power) noise to be strongly inspired by black metal.

PRURIENT (us)

“Fernow’s productions have tended to flirt with fields taking the extreme sentiment of black metal while building the compositions from feedback drone distortion and synthesis.”
(Boomkat)

Our first impression of Prurient – Dominick Fernow (see too: Vatican Shadow and Cold Cave) to his friends – was instantly magnificent. In '06, he was invited by Thurston Moore to the much-praised All Tomorrow’s Parties festival where his solo performance was one of the most extreme we have ever seen. His love is for noise and Fernow makes no secret of the fact that he is strongly influenced by black metal (he even had a black metal band: Ash Pool). His releases often appear via his very own Hospital Productions, but also via England's hip Blackest Ever Black. The latest Prurient album ‘Through The Window’ even has techno (read: doom techno) influences. Boomkat on that: “It’s a masterful consolidation of black, gothic noise, emotion and dancefloor gratification”.

RUSSELL HASSWELL (uk)

One of our favourite extreme sound/noise fetishists. In '02, Warp released his most 'popular' album ‘Satanstornade – a brutal, extremely gripping chunk of noise’ (a collaboration with Masami Akita aka Japanese noise master Merzbow). A joke by the big-shots at Warp: the release received catalogue number 666. His latest releases appeared via Editions Mego (see too: KTL with Stephen O’ Malley). The Wire on that: "a fearsome, skull shattering, flesh shredding display of electronic hostility. Also nice: "play this to a Slipknot fan and watch his head fall off."

In the past, he has worked with Aphex Twin, Earth, Mike Vainio (Pan Sonic) as well as with his regular companion Florian Hecker. Finally, to set the scene: his latest album ‘Factual’ contains a track – ‘Black Metal Instrumental Intro Demo’ – that (according to Boomkat) was inspired by “flashbacks to his experiences of early black metal concerts around Europe.”